Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Dodgy Park

Today's park is not going to be rated - you're never going to go there unless you move into my street. It's one of those dinky little parks with barely any bones to it which sits in a grassy patch at the end of a street or adjacent to a main road. Nothing attractive at all.

So why on earth am I bothering to post given that this blog has been set up for "ratings" and "recommendations" and I'm not going to do that? I wanted to point out the value of all parks big or small and - more importantly - the value of going to a lo-fi park frequently rather than saving up for the hullabaloo of a drive and packing a picnic (etc) to go somewhere more flashy.

The park below is across the road and up one street. Thus we go there ALL THE TIME. Way more often that we go anywhere else. It's our local. It has one slide, two swings, a couple of falling apart rocker things that I'm actually too scared for CK to go in incase they are rusted away and break at the slightest bend. It has an excessive amount of graffiti offering cracks, good times and telling me that Jenny is a slut. There are always booze bottles on the ground. The one time we met someone else here the other girl played a game with CK and cheated, thus this has become known as "the cheaters park" by CK (she mentions it every time we go there...). It's got nothing going for it really.

But given that its across the street and given that we can pop there for five minutes with young MK in the sling and CK walking, its actually got everything going for it. CK has decided that this is her animal rescue centre (a la Go Diego Go). This park will never be a treasure island or a vet surgery or a cafe or a school. It's always going to be the animal rescue centre. And for that she loves it dearly.

My post today is to say don't save up your park experiences until you have the time to go to one with rocking ships or climbing frames that reach the clouds - go to your dodgy one down the road frequently. Your kid will make a connection and form a scenario around how they want to interact with the park stronger than if you head to a park where its all laid out for them.

Photos below of CK mid-animal rescue. A baby bear was caught in a large tree and only she and her sister could save it.

3 comments:

Your dodgy park is *much* better than our down the hill park. But as you suggest, ours is a favourite for us too. It was the ice cream shop for a long time (I can still feel the sand in my teeth). Tilly went down the slide just the other day (for old times's sake)... and she was as long as it. Poop! We've grown out of our dodgy down the hill park. Sad times.Love the blog BTW!

We have the pleasure of living right near the Jubilee Park, Bardon. Its an amazing park for all years of age. Older kids kick footies on the massive oval while younger kids play on the slides. It literally takes us less than a minute to walk there!!! :) Ps. Love your reviews!

Why is leaving never easy?

Its either "leaving is never easy" or "dragging your kids out of the park". A good park is hard to leave. This is a compendium of parks explored by CK (3.5) and parents - the good, the bad and the ugly all rated for your ease. Brisbane has some amazing parks - many of them tucked away, many of them needing referral. We aim to play hard and critique fair. Building up a reference of parks allows you to avoid that "well that place sucked" feeling and just hit the gold.

All suggestions for places to explore greatly appreciated - we wanna find some new parks too!